OF FIRST LESSONS IN GREEK: ADAPTED TO GOODWIN'S GREEK GRAMMAR, AND DESIGNED AS AN INTRODUCTION TO THE ANABASIS OF XENOPHON. BY JOHN WILLIAMS WHITE, PH. D., ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY. Οὐκοῦν οἶσθ' ὅτι ἀρχὴ παντὸς ἔργου μέγιστον, ότῳοῦν ; — PLAT. Repo 377 A. APR 1881 BODLEIANA LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO. 1880. 304. f. 44. PREFACE. HIS Series of First Lessons in Greek is intended to THIS be used in connection with Professor W. W. Goodwin's Greek Grammar. Its plan is in some respects peculiar, and perhaps needs explanation. There are two extremes of method in instructing beginners in Greek which I have endeavored to avoid. By the one undue attention is given to formal grammar, and paradigms and rules and exceptions to rules are laboriously committed to memory with no illustration except of the most meagre sort; by the other too little attention is paid to systematic grammar, and the pupil begins to read too early, on the theory that he will be able to deduce facts and rules for himself as he proceeds. But the simplest Greek classic certainly presents difficulties in the way of forms and constructions that demand previous explanation. A method by which young pupils are put into a Greek or Latin author without such previous explanation cannot, I am convinced, be successful. In this book, therefore, I have endeavored to pursue a middle course; and, while laying a solid foundation of grammar as the necessary preparation for intelligent and profitable reading, I have remembered that for the beginner grammar is beyond dispute a means and not an end. The Greek verb, doubtless, presents in its forms and uses the greatest body of difficulties that the beginner has |